2014 Cadillac ELR

Cadillac is betting that the stunning shape of its ELR coupe makes it worth twice the price of the Chevrolet Volt on which it’s based. Is Caddy onto something, or just smoking something?

The Cadillac ELR is a future pod, a show car made real. And it better look like a million bucks, because everybody’s going around calling it the $75,995 Chevy Volt.
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Yes, you read that correctly. The ELR’s entry price is nearly double that of the Volt, the Caddy’s mechanical starting point, and it’s roughly 2.5 times that of the average new car.

Hasn’t the Volt proven itself salesproof enough? Or does the ELR make an elegantly tailored and subversively creased argument that the Volt is actually too cheap? Is the Chevy’s primary failing that it doesn’t give the TED-talking, Google-glass-wearing, EV-driving set a suitably expensive way to prove how frugal they are? (See: Tesla.)

And as it turns out, this $80,000 Volt business is a bit of an overstatement anyway. The Cadillac is indeed based on the Chevy but shares very little with it except the 16.5-kWh battery pack and powertrain, and even those have software tweaks.

The floorpan is similar, but the suspension is all-new. It uses GM’s HiPer strut in front for better geometry, a Watt’s linkage for better lateral control at the rear, and variable dampers and power steering from ZF.

It’s longer than the Volt by 8.9 inches, wider by 2.3 inches, and lower by 0.7 inch, and it rides on a slightly longer wheelbase. The base of its windshield sits 6.3 inches forward of the Volt’s for that dramatic front rake, and not a single exterior piece is shared. So saying it’s just an $80,000 Volt is akin to asserting that the Cadillac XTS is a $45,000 Malibu. Which is true and also not true at all. \
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